Cloud Seeding (continued)

Eric's scepticism regarding Taffy's claims and his disappointment at not receiving the promised role of chief of the Meteorological Section of CSIRO caused some tension between them. Eric's appointment with the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics was terminated.

Eric bought a fruit farm in the Blue Mountains and worked as operations manager with BCPA for a while before moving to Cooma in 1952 after his appointment as a meteorologist with SMHEA. Eric took a year's leave in 1955–56 to work for WMO/UN in Africa and on his return to Cooma found that during his absence Taffy Bowen's cloud seeding group had carried out a large cloud seeding exercise in the Snowy Mountains for which they claimed spectacular success. I believe that at this stage Pat Squires had avoided cloud seeding operations and was engaged in a highly successful research project in cloud physics.

Eric says that he examined the results of the seeding and could not find any sound statistical evidence to support the CSIRO claims. Somewhat imprudently he reported his conclusions to an international cloud physics conference in Canberra. Eric states that the CSIRO hierarchy pressed Sir William Hudson, Chief of SMHEA, to repudiate Eric's statement which Sir William refused to do. In the meantime Sir Marcus Oliphant had offered Eric an appointment in Canberra which was withdrawn after what Eric believes were representations from the CSIRO. Eric decided he had no future in Australia and after winning the 1960–61 Rossby Fellowship at Woods Hole he received a permanent appointment at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute whence he proceeded to further meteorological research in Boulder, Colorado.

Bureau of Meteorology